THE CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION OF NATURALSOURCES OF POWER
By John H. Finney,
Secretary of the Appalachian National Forest Association. Kind of a fascinating little work bringing the conservation ethos to energy, etc.

“WHEN our coal fields are exhausted of their stored carbon, science will convert water into light and heat, and the sun’s rays into power; but in the process of harnessing tides, wind, and light rays, we are coining back to the simple methods of the ancients in their effort to make available the surrounding agencies of nature. It may be said that nearly all permanently useful progress is toward simplicity ; but the human mind is so constituted that it likes to wander afield, and reaches results oftentimes by the most indirect route.”

Describes Eneas’ motor and then… “It was thought that the solar motor would lead to great development of arid lands by providing cheap means of running irrigation pumps, but little has been accomplished in that direction. The heat developed by solar motors is intense. A solar motor, or burning mirror, as called in England, developed heat which melted a piece of iron in sixteen seconds.”

The Solar Motor was once placed in Stephen Mitchell & Son cigarette pack cards.

“An Account of a Solar Motor which has been Set up In California:—A Machine which Traps Sunbeams, and Sets them to Work to Boil Water, thus Providing the Cheapest Motive Power Known. How the Solar Motor is to Convert Arid Deserts into Fertile”

“The immense advantage possessed by the solar motor over most other sources of power is that it requires no fuel, which in arid regions is a scarce and expensive commodity.”

“WHY should we burn costly, harddelved coal in power-houses, when we can hitch our trolley cars to the sun and have them propelled for the asking ? But how to hitch them — that has been the problem with which scientific men have wrestled for years. Now it has been solved, and the principle of the invention, like the principle of all great inventions, is exceedingly simple. If you take a sun-glass and a toy-engine, and can get sufficient heat at the focal point of the sun’s rays below the glass to make the water bubble in the tiny boiler, you will have steam and presently power. This has now been done by the new solar motor.”

A citation of The World’s Work article on Eneas

A brief report on a Kansas solar motor

An article on Eneas’ sun motor at the Pasadena ostrich farm.

“The Sun Motor and the Sun’s Temperature”

A biography with brief references to Ericcson’s work in solar motors.

A paper on the utilization of solar energy by ASE Ackermann of England.

A description of Tesla’s solar engine… Never commercialized but certainly pretty sweet sounding.

Charles H. Pope of Farmington, Maine, has published a curious tract on Solar Enginery^ in which he claims that “the use of sun-heat” as a motive power ” is today exactly where the art of steam-enginery was on that October morning when Fulton set sail up the Hudson in 1807.”

Brief review of Solar Heat: Its Practical Applications

By the author of “Solar Enginery” and “The Pioneers of Massachusetts”